


How To: Fail Philosophy

by dreamtowns



Category: The Dragon Prince (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Childhood Friends to Lovers, Denial of Feelings, F/F, Fluff, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mild Angst, Mild Language, Slow Burn, tropes galore
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-11
Updated: 2018-10-10
Packaged: 2019-07-29 09:06:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16261055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamtowns/pseuds/dreamtowns
Summary: Marcos had read various horror stories about ones’ freshman year of college—the horrifying roommate, the frat parties at two in the morning, raucous neighbors and absent RAs, the 8AM lectures you showed up for with dark, heavy bags underneath your eyes for a test you’ll probably fail (despite studying for twelve hours)—but he wasn’t sure if the reality was any less different or horrifying.What he does know, however, is that he’s going to fail his Philosophy class because of this stupidly old crush on his childhood best friend, Soren. Because the man just won’t stop being so stupidly cute.





	How To: Fail Philosophy

**Author's Note:**

> I do not own The Dragon Prince. All rights reserved to its developers: Wonderstorm + Netflix. All that is mine is the plot of this story and any original characters introduced. No copyright infringement intended. No money is being made from this work. This is purely for entertainment purposes. 
> 
> Enjoy :)

Sometimes, Marcos had to wonder if he upset some ancient deity in a past life or if he was simply born with horrible, horrible luck.

“You’re being dramatic,” Corvus, his best friend, stated. His nose buried in the spine of his biology textbook, he barely glanced up at Marcos’ pitiful whine.

Marcos frowned. “I’m not.”

Corvus looked up and quirked an eyebrow.

Marcos slouched in his chair, grumbling, “Okay, maybe a little.”

“It isn’t the end of the world,” said Corvus, warm amusement in his eyes. “I mean, you reunited with Soren.”

Ah, Soren.

When Marcos was younger, he had a best friend. Soren. They were attached at the hip since they first met—and how they met was funny, considering Marcos tripped Soren on the playground by accident and spurred on the Great Sand War of Kindergarten—but on the eve of middle school, Soren’s father got a promotion at his job, and the family had to move.

Imagine Marcos’ surprise, then, when he joined his orientation group for his college, and ended up sitting right next to Soren.

“Yeah, it’s surreal,” Marcos said, and played with the drawstring of his hoodie. “I mean—who would’ve thought that scrawny kid turned out to be…”

Noise from the other end of the quad burst in the air, and Marcos turned to see a group of jocks sprawled out on a corner of the lawn. They were from the hockey team, their dark red, gold, and brown letterman jackets a dead giveaway as to who they were. The manager of the team (and Marcos’ RA), Gren, was amongst them. Soren was in the middle of the makeshift circle they were making, that stupid grin on his face as he joked and laughed with his teammates.

“Turned out to be what?” Corvus questioned, a knowing smile on his lips.

“You know,” Marcos said, throwing a bunched-up piece of paper at Corvus, who batted it away with a bright laugh.

“That’s assault, Marcos.” Corvus puffed up in mock-outrage. “I think I need to file a roommate request form.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Marcos said.

It was an on-going joke between the two of them; that they’d call the RA (i.e., Gren) or fill out a room-request form if they exhibited behavior they didn’t like. Which, in their dorm, meant Marcos ended up stress-eating all of Corvus’s pudding cups or that Corvus slept on the floor instead of on his bed, and Marcos tripped over him in the morning before his morning class.

“Anyway,” Marcos turned his attention back to his notes, his face warm at the sight of the smile on Soren’s face. “I need to study for this class, it’s so annoying.”

“Philosophy, right?” Corvus asked with a head tilt, and then furrowed his eyebrows together in confusion. “Wait, what classes are you taking again?”

“Uh…the Philosophy class, Statistics…Intro to Humanities…um, I’m pretty sure I’m also taking Microeconomics…and, oh yeah, Mass Communications.”

Corvus blinked. “Why are taking Micoecon.?”

“I like to suffer,” Marcos explained.

Corvus gave him a sympathetic nod. “I feel that. This Anatomy class is killing me.”

Marcos grimaced. “I don’t know why you wanted to be a bio major.”

Corvus groaned, resting his head atop the bench table, and sighed, “Honey, I don’t know either. I like animals—I’m pretty sure I’m gonna be a vet.”

“Have fun with that,” said Marcos, uncapping his highlighter.

Corvus’ response was dry. “I appreciate your enthusiastic support.”

Peaceful silence floated between them as they focused on their studies. Marcos trudged through three more pages of notes for Microeconomics and his Humanities course before he turned to his most dreaded class: Introduction to Philosophy. His professor was…an interesting man, and Marcos was being very, very nice.

Corvus stretched, and then snapped his book shut. “I’m gonna go grab food. Want anything?”

After a moment of thought, Marcos shook his head. “I’m good. Are you gonna head back upstairs or come back?”

“Hmm…probably gonna go back up for a nap,” said Corvus as he stuffed his textbook, notebook, and other supplies in his bag in a haphazard way before zipping it shut. “I have that night class today.”

“Good luck,” Marcos said, a hint of amusement in his mouth as Corvus made a disgruntled face.

“Whoever decided theatre should be at night,” said Corvus, “I want to have a word with them.”

“Please,” said Marcos, amused, “do not.”

Corvus patted his hand. “Don’t worry, I won’t.” As he glanced towards the circle of hockey players, a sly smile grew on his lips. “Looks like lover-boy is on his way here.”

Marcos sputtered. “What are you—?”

“Marcos!”

Soren jogged in view, grin so bright Marcos thought he needed sunglasses, and plopped down where Corvus once sat. Corvus slinked away with a snicker, and Marcos almost wished he’d stayed. Almost, because Corvus liked to tease him about his conversations with Soren.

“H-Hey, Soren,” Marcos greeted, silently wincing at his slight stutter. “Uh. How’s it going?”

_Really, Marcos…how’s it going?_

“I’m alive,” Soren deadpanned, and Marcos snorted. Soren’s grin widened at Marcos’ amusement, and he teased, “There’s that grin I’ve been waiting for.”

Marcos choked and spiraled into slight coughs. “What, what do you mean?”

Soren leaned forward, resting his chin atop his hand, and said, “You’ve been walking around with this, like, dark cloud of, uh, sadness lately.”

“I have?” Marcos blinked.

“Yeah,” Soren nodded, and his bright smile dipped a little when he asked, a little hesitant, “Is, um, everything okay? Like, at home and stuff? Or with, uh, classes?”

“Yeah, I’m just a little stressed,” Marcos explained truthfully, his frown stretched into a warm smile. “This philosophy class is kicking my ass.”

Soren nodded. “God, same. I don’t know what crawled up his butt and died, but he should go check that out.”

Laugher spilled out of Marcos’s throat, but he threw his pencil at Soren. “I did not need that imagery, thank you very much.”

Soren snickered. “Your welcome.”

Marcos, spurred on by a childish impulse, stuck out his tongue at Soren.

Soren’s eyes grew wide and, oddly, a bright flush spread over the bridge of his nose. “Is that a _tongue ring?”_

Flustered, Marcos replied, “Um, uh, yeah! I got it for my seventeenth birthday.”

“Shit, really?” Soren breathed out. “That’s—that’s cool.”

“It hurt like a bitch, though,” said Marcos, reminiscing. “One of my aunts took me to get it because I won the bet.”

Soren tilted his head. “Bet?”

“Yeah,” Marcos nodded. “I made a bet my junior year that if I submitted one of my pieces for this, um, magazine and got accepted, I could get my tongue pierced. If I didn’t, then I’d have to settle for, like, I think it was another ear piercing or something.”

Silence floated from Soren’s end, and Marcos blinked, a little awkward at the sight of Soren stumbling for words.

“Are you interesting in, like, piercings and stuff?” Marcos asked, if only to dispel the slightly awkward air. “Um, I know you’ve talked about it with, uh, Gren, right?”

Soren nodded, wordless.

One wouldn’t expect their bubbly and comical RA to be decked out in piercings and ink but, well, let it be known that Marcos refused to judge people based on first appearances after he walked into the floor lounge of his dorm hall and saw a group of other freshman bombarding Gren with questions about one of his sleeve tattoos.

The quiet stretched a little longer before Marcos poked Soren’s arm. “You okay?”

Soren jerked back, thrown out of thought, and a sheepish smile pulled on his lips as he rubbed the back of his neck. “Ah, sorry. I got lost in thought. Uh…I’ve been thinking about it, but I don’t know. I’m pretty sure my dad would, like, murder me.”

Marcos hummed. He remembered little of Viren, Soren’s father, but the little he did remember wasn’t much of a pleasant picture.  

“Yeah, probably,” said Marcos, a slight grimace as he remembered the stony way the man regarded him whenever they were underfoot.

Soren snorted, and opened his mouth, but a shout from the other end of the quad stopped him. “Yo, Soren!” one of his teammates called. “Quit flirting – we’ve got that lecture in five!”

“ _Shit.”_ Soren jumped up, frantic, but flashed a grin at Marcos. “Talk to you later, yeah?” before Marcos could nod, Soren was halfway across the quad, feet pounding against the asphalt. “Callisto, don’t you dare leave me behind!”

“Hurry up, then,” was the response.

“Well, wasn’t that a nice conversation,” said Corvus, and Marcos shrieked.

“Where the _fuck_ —,” Marcos cut himself off and settled for a punch to Corvus’ shoulder. “Shut the hell up, Cor. Weren’t you going to take a nap?”

Corvus took a bite out of his bagel. “This was more entertaining than sleep.”

Marcos rolled his eyes.

“Come on,” Corvus said once he swallowed his bite. “There’s a package waiting for you in our room.”

 

* * *

 

The package turned out to be Callum and Rayla, resident high school brats who insisted on giving Marcos gray hairs by the time he turned twenty. Perched on his desk as though she belonged there, Rayla flipped through one of the schools’ events catalogues with pursed lips. Callum, predictably, was face-down on Marcos’ bed.

“Can I jump out the window?” Callum asked Marcos’ blanket.

“If you do, I call dibs on your 3ds,” Rayla said absentmindedly, and perused two more pages. “I haven’t been able to play Pokémon since mine broke.”

“Why are you in here?” Marcos sighed and nudged Callum’s foot. “No jumping out of windows, brat.”

“Why not?” the boy whined.

Marcos shared a look with Corvus, though Corvus looked immensely amused by the situation than Marcos. “Don’t you wanna, like, be an animator or something?”

As if quoting from another source, Callum said, in a mocking tone, though his voice still muffled, “There’re no career opportunities in making cartoons.”

Rayla snorted and muttered something in another language under her breath.

“Uh,” said Marcos, and shared a glance with Corvus.

He was not qualified to comfort a teenager experiencing a midlife-crises, his job as Callum’s and Ezran’s babysitter notwithstanding.

Corvus frowned. “Are those classmates of your bugging you? I can talk to them, if you’d like.”

Marcos pinched the bridge of his nose. “Please do not fight high schoolers.”

“Who said anything about fighting?” Corvus said with a polite smile. “I was just going to have polite conversation.”

Under her breath, Rayla said, “Yeah, and I’m a Moonshadow Elf.”

Overhearing the mutter, Corvus, like the mature twenty-year-old he was, stuck his tongue out at her. Rayla repeated the gesture, like the mature fifteen-year-old she was. Marcos rubbed his temples, wondering if it were too late to drop out and become a carrot farmer so he didn’t have to deal with the headaches he reluctantly called friends and family. Callum, during this interaction, wrapped Marcos’ blanket around him until he looked like a kicked puppy burrito-style.

Sympathetic, Marcos patted Callum’s head. “Want to make fun of horrible movies society calls romantic comedy.”

Callum sniffles. “Can I have vanilla ice cream?”

“Callum,” said Marcos, “you’re lactose intolerant.”

Callum stared at him evenly. “Your point?”

“Wait, are we gonna make fun of romcoms when I have a night class?” Corvus raised an eyebrow, his expression faintly similar to that of a pout. “Rude.”

“I’ll try not to eat all the popcorn,” said Rayla.

Corvus opened his mouth, but there were three rapid knocks on the door. Claudia poked her head into the room a moment later. Marcos gave a deadpan stare at Corvus, who failed to hide his amusement.  “ _There_ you guys are,” Claudia said; there were streaks of green paint on one side of her cheek, for some reason. “Auntie’s here, so we gotta go.”

Corvus tilted his head. “Auntie?”

 Absentmindedly, Rayla pointed at Burrito-Callum. “His mom.”

Callum blew a raspberry in response.

“Let’s go,” Claudia said, hopping on both her feet. “If I have to miss Uncle Harrow’s lasagna—,” she paused, catching sight of Burrito-Callum and blinked. “Uh…Callum…? You okay?”

“Yes,” said Burrito-Callum.

“No,” chorused the rest of the room.

Rayla hopped off Marcos’ desk and grabbed her bag before she stared at Callum with a steely gaze. “I’ll buy you all the ice cream you want, Callum, but if I miss Harrow’s lasagna before Runaan gets off work, I’m going to fight you.”

Callum made a face, but obligingly climbed out of Marcos’ blankets. “We can have a cliché romcom night another time,” Marcos said, and Callum nodded.

“See you guys,” Claudia waved.

When their dorm was teenager-free, Marcos stared at Corvus.

“I didn’t do anything,” Corvus denied, palms up as if to prove his innocence. “It’s not _my_ fault Callum knows how to pick locks.”

“Uh huh,” said Marcos. “Sure it isn’t.”

Corvus sniffed. “I don’t have time for such accusations, good sir. I have to go reenact Macbeth in the most dramatic way possible.”

 

* * *

 

The lounge would be a peaceful haven, if not for the way the evening sunlight looked in Soren’s hair. Marcos had left his room (read: his bed) in hopes of completing his essay on current events for his Philosophy class, and he had gotten through his introduction paragraph when Soren plopped down next to him with his laptop and bookbag, returning from his last class of the day.

“Why am I taking business calc.?” Soren groaned, face-planting against his opened textbook. The amount of numbers and variables on one page alone made Marcos’ head spin, and he only glanced at said page.

“I don’t know,” said Marcos. “You, uh, wanna be an accountant?”

Soren snorted. “Nah, actually, I’m doing a degree in business management.”

“Sounds fancy,” said Marcos, idly distracted.

“It’s so _boring_ ,” said Soren. “Every time my professor opens her mouth, I want to sleep.”

Marcos’ lips twitched, and he teased, “Poor baby.”

“I didn’t come here to be attacked,” Soren grumbled as he sat upright, and then glanced at him. “What’re you working on? Philosophy, again?”

“Yup,” Marcos replied with a thin smile. “Gotta love these weekly current events assignments.”

“I still need to look for an article,” Soren muttered, stretching, “but this business calc. is due at midnight, so…”

Marcos winced. “Good luck.”

“Thanks,” Soren sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. “I can’t wait until the weekend…I’m gonna sleep until two in the afternoon.”

Marcos raised an eyebrow. “Don’t you have practice?”

“I can skip,” said Soren, waving his hand.

“You’re the captain of the team,” Marcos reminded him. “And I’m pretty sure Coach Amaya will kill you. And so will Gren.”

“Yeah, I will,” said Gren as he bypassed their table. “Wait…why am I killing you?”

“No reason,” said Soren loudly, and Marcos smothered his laugh behind his hand, sputtering when Soren elbowed him in the side. “No reason at all, except that I’m just so handsome I have to be killed. Right, Marcos?”

Marcos wheezed, tears clinging to the edges of his eyes, as he tried to swallow his laughter. Gren laughed, his grin crooked.

Soren elbowed him again.

“R-Right,” Marcos managed to say.

“Well…I gotta go do my rounds,” said Gren, wearing the tell-tale dark red collar shirt that marked campus staff, student or otherwise. His nametag was black, with gold lettering. “Try not to flood your bathroom again, yeah?”

“One time,” said Soren, though it was more of a whine. “I do that once, and no one lets it go.”

Marcos patted Soren’s shoulder with a sympathetic air. “If it makes you feel better,” said Marcos, “You’ll only be hearing it for about four or so years.”

Soren glared at him, but the effect was ruined by the warmth in his eyes. “Shut up,” he grumbled. “Or I’ll tell everyone about the Incident.”

Gren titled his head, eyes gleaming with curiosity. “Ooh, the Incident?”

“Don’t you dare,” Marcos hissed.

Soren smiled. “Oh, I _dare_.”

“Whatever it is,” said Gren, patient yet immensely amused at Marcos’ suffering, “Please don’t destroy the lounge. If you make me have to talk to Opeli any longer than I have to…” he left the threat hanging in the air, a peaceful smile on his face.

Marcos and Soren shuddered.

“Aye, aye,” said Soren after he shared a terrified glance with Marcos and saluted.

Gren could be terrifying sometimes.

“Well, I’m terrified of someone who once cried over a baby bunny,” said Soren, once Gren left to do his rounds as the RA on duty.

Marcos laughed.

“That aside…” Soren said as he logged out of his homework site for business calculus, and pulled up a website Marcos vaguely knew of. “Time for the good stuff.”

Marcos raised an eyebrow. “The what?”

“It’s time to relax, Marcos,” Soren said, placing his laptop in between them. “It’s time for your education.”

“Oh, really?” Marcos said, amused. “And what is on today’s lesson?”

Soren grinned. “Studio Ghibli.”

Marcos blinked, and then stared at the time. “Don’t you have homework due in, like, two hours?”

“Yeah,” Soren nodded, “but it’s time to cry over Ponyo.”

Marcos bit his bottom lip, doing his best to smother his laugh, before he sighed and closed his laptop. He wasn’t getting anywhere with that assignment right now, so he might as well procrastinate with his best friend. It wasn’t due until Friday, so Marcos had time.

“Prepare to cry,” Soren warned him quietly as he pressed play on the movie. “Ponyo can warm the coldest of hearts.”

Marcos smiled. “I’ll take your word for it, then.”

The movie began, but Marcos was mostly distracted by the warmth of Soren’s side, and the way he smiled and lit up at certain scenes, nostalgia running through his veins. While Marcos wasn’t shedding any tears insofar, he could see the appeal of Ponyo. It was a cute movie.

The sun set lowly behind them, and noise slowly floated inside the lounge as people made themselves comfortable on the couches or other tables for homework or a late dinner, but Marcos’ attention was split between Soren himself and the movie. When it ended, he noticed he had an unread message from Corvus.

> _From: Corvus_
> 
> _please get married already._

He rolled his eyes and staunchly ignored the message. He nudged Soren instead until the other boy glanced at him. “Have you seen Kiki’s Delivery Service?” Marcos asked, and Soren shook his head. Marcos smiled. “Wanna ignore our responsibilities and watch it after Ponyo?”

Soren grinned, and Marcos’ breath caught in his throat.

_Okay…_ , he thought to himself as Soren searched for Kiki’s Delivery Service, a little dazed, _maybe Corvus is onto something…_

**Author's Note:**

> This was not Beta’d so don’t @ me for any errors. this also for fun and to relieve stress, so I’m not really looking for critique. Regardless, please let me know your thoughts on the premace of this AU! You can find artwork for it [here](http://vulpeculaque.tumblr.com/post/178905374117/more-college-au-sketches-for-x-adia) and [here](http://vulpeculaque.tumblr.com/post/178806954142/some-really-rough-concept-designs-for-x-adias) by the lovely @vulpeculaque on tumblr.
> 
> Thank you for reading! You are also welcomed to come chat w me about this AU on my tdp fandom tumblr @x-adia! My inbox is always open!


End file.
